


our favorite parts (are what we'll keep)

by orphan_account



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Christmas, F/F, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 09:30:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5534759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>regina gets hurt, and emma comes to the rescue.</p>
<p>it's still the best christmas ever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	our favorite parts (are what we'll keep)

**Author's Note:**

> this is dedicated to the lovely [wishing-the-imposible](http://wishing-the-imposible.tumblr.com/) who gave me the original prompt (which i then decided to turn into a christmas one-shot, because all those festive edits put me in the holiday spirit.) for reference, it takes place in a canon-divergent storybrooke some time after 4a. it also fits for day one of the 12 days of swan queen, since this would be the first christmas the swan-mills family celebrates all together.

“Mom!” Henry calls from his bedroom. He knows she absolutely hates when he screams through the house, always tells him it's much more polite to find the person in question and speak at a reasonable level, but this is an Urgent Emergency and he should be able to make an exception. Besides, he also knows she's probably finished wrapping the gifts and this would be an excellent time to distract her while he tries to guess what he'll be getting based on the shapes and sounds of the packages downstairs.

He’s already opened his stocking, mostly full of candy--Mom still likes to say it’s from Santa, and he plays along because Christmas has always been one of their special times and he doesn’t feel the need to grow up anytime soon, unlike a lot of the kids at school who brag about how they found out Santa wasn’t real, like, ten years ago. It’s a tradition, and Henry loves traditions almost as much as Mom does. 

Now they’re in that window when Mom hasn’t started cooking and he’s doing last-minute wrapping before the real gifts are exchanged. The whole house smells like pine, and later he’ll go over to Mary Margaret and David’s for a second round but right now it’s just him and Mom and a curling excitement in his stomach.

She appears at the doorway, slightly disheveled. “Henry, you know I’d prefer for you to come find me if you need something.”

“I know,” he whines gently, “but this is important.”

“All right then,” she relents (and of course she gives in, because it's Mom and this is Christmas and Mom loves Christmas with a passion normally reserved for disciplining wayward council members and using her Mercedes to block Emma’s Bug into her parking space.)

“It's Emma's present,” he says. “I left it up there,” and he points to the uppermost shelf of his closet. He'd hid the scrapbook there weeks ago, determined not to let Emma find it. It's one of his best works yet, the cover embossed with gold and the purple pages covered with pictures of the two of them together, and he's so proud that he's nearly bursting with excitement at the prospect of finally giving it to her. 

Mom’s in a lot of the pictures, too, a reluctant smile on her face as they pull her into the frame. His favorite photo--he gave it a whole page to itself, with the word _family_ spelled out in cursive at the top--is from Emma’s birthday dinner at Granny’s. He's in between his moms, their hands slung over each other's shoulders as Mary Margaret and David smile out from behind them. Emma’s wearing a tiny golden tiara ( _finally growing into your role as a princess_ , Mom had quipped) and her mouth is dotted with crumbs of chocolate cake. 

His stomach had hurt from laughing that day, and he hopes Emma will appreciate the memory. He knows Mom did, because when she’d seen him making that page she'd traced the _f_ in _family_ and said _it’s beautiful, Henry_ in that voice she gets when she's choked up and trying not to cry, like when they talk about the time she spent in the Enchanted Forest when he was in New York and didn’t even remember her.

Mom thinks he bought her earrings this year, which he did. They're pearls, classic and elegant, and he knows she'll like them. But she doesn't know about his other gift, the special one, and he gets a jumpy feeling in the back of his throat when he thinks about giving it to her. It's a lot, even he knows that, and he can't help wishing that maybe Emma could spend Christmas at their house and help him explain, because there are a lot of things he wants to say to Mom but sometimes it feels like he can't get the words quite right.

Mom sighs. “I’ll get it,” she says, and she stretches up on the tops of her heels to grasp the corner of the scrapbook.

Everything happens too fast for him to follow. Mom loses balance, ankle twisting precariously as she scrabbles for purchase on the shelf, and then she's falling towards the floor and then--he's moving to try to catch it but he won't make it in time--his heavy history textbook is falling too, thudding on her head with a horrible, horrible sound and sliding to the floor.

“Mom!” he screams, but she doesn’t respond and his heart is thumping _one two three_ hard in his chest and it feels like he can’t catch his breath. He shakes her gently and she still doesn’t move.

Last month in health class, they had a presentation about what to do in case of an emergency. The Blue Fairy came in as a guest speaker and told them to _stay calm_ and _contact the authorities_ and _remain where you are until help comes_. At the end of the lecture, the whole class was asked how many of them thought they could do that, and every single person raised their hand. Including Henry.

Except now he forgets everything, because his mom is on the floor and she’s not waking up and he thinks he can see a tiny trickle of blood on the side of her face and he thought he had an Urgent Emergency before but this is real, now, and terrifying. So he calls Emma, because Emma always knows what to do. Emma will be able to help. Emma is an adult, and right now he has never felt smaller.

She picks up after four rings, and Henry sighs in relief. “Kid?”

“Ma,” he chokes out, “please come.”

“What’s wrong?” she asks, and he lets out a broken sob and this is all wrong. It’s Christmas, and this is all wrong.

“Mom’s hurt,” he says. He hears her sharp intake of breath in the crackle of the static.

“I’ll be right there,” she says. “Don’t move, okay?”

“Okay,” he whispers, and he sits down next to Mom and strokes her hair and pushes Emma’s scrapbook under the bed because somewhere inside he’s still hoping they’ll have Christmas all together, that he’ll wake up from this nightmare to hot cocoa and his family and white lights twinkling in the branches of their tree.

\--

He hears Emma’s car within a few minutes, the screeching of tires that signals her arrival. She sprints up the stairs and into his room.

“Shit,” she says, and then: “I’m calling 911.”

So the EMT’s arrive and they carry his mom out to the ambulance in a stretcher and Emma holds his hand, which normally would be embarrassing but right now feels solid in a way he needs.

“Only one person allowed in, Sheriff,” one of the medics says as Emma starts to hoist him into the back with Mom, and she laughs like she thinks it’s a joke.

“Sorry, lady, but this is her son,” she says. “And I’m her...I need to be there too.”

The medic considers this, and then shrugs. “Suit yourself, but it’ll be cramped.”

“We don’t mind, do we Henry?” Emma asks him. He shakes his head and sits next to Mom. Her hand is cold to the touch, limp.

The drive is shorter than he would've expected. Emma whispers that it'll be okay, that it looks like Mom just has a concussion and she’ll probably wake up in a few minutes, and it's comforting but not enough to stop the sound of the textbook hitting her head from replaying in his brain over and over.

Because the thing is, Mom doesn't get hurt. Mom is solid, steady, even when she doesn't have to be. Mom can take all her makeup off and call him her little prince and still be the strongest person he's ever met. Mom’s the one who takes care of him, and he’s growing up but he doesn't think he's ready for the roles to be reversed just yet.

He looks up to see Emma holding Mom’s other hand. She turns her head as if she's embarrassed, which, like, he's not _blind_. He knows they've grown closer in the past year, that when Emma comes over to dinner now it’s because Mom invites her, even if she usually uses terrible excuses like _I made too much lasagna for Henry to eat_. (This one is especially bad, because Emma knows lasagna’s one of Henry’s favorites too and he’s growing so fast that he’s hungry _all_ the time.) And Mom sent him and Emma to New York with all new memories, happy memories, and Emma still cries when she thinks about it sometimes, so after that hand holding doesn’t seem like too much.

Dr. Whale opens the back of the ambulance, and Emma gives him a pained smile. “Probably just a concussion,” she says. “But she hasn't woken up yet, and Henry was really worried about her.”

Henry _hates_ when adults use him as excuses for things. Like when Mary Margaret was pregnant with Neal and she ordered three helpings of fries with extra pickles and told Granny it was all for him because she was so embarrassed, and he had to deal with Granny’s gentle teasing for weeks afterward. Sometimes when his moms do it, though, he doesn't mind so much, because he knows they're kind of bad with feelings. It's almost like they have a special language just for the two of them, so that after dinner when Mom says _Henry was wondering if you’d stay and watch a movie with us_ and Emma flushes red there’s some understanding that passes between them, a secret code he can’t quite unravel.

They wheel Mom into a hospital bed, and Dr. Whale shines a light into her eyes for a few seconds while Emma and Henry wait anxiously. 

“She'll be fine,” he says. “She should wake up in a few minutes, and then we'll do a few tests and you can take her home. Just--”

“Lots of rest, no alcohol, no TV or strenuous activity. I know the drill,” says Emma.

“Great,” Whale replies, and he walks back out to the foyer, closing the door behind him.

They sit. Henry watches the clock, counts out the beats of the second hand. Emma’s hands twist and pull at each other.

“What did you get her for Christmas?” she asks finally, when the silence is too much to bear.

“I made--” he starts, but then Mom groans and they’re both shooting to their feet.

Mom opens her eyes and flinches, does it again but slower, squinting. “Now I see why you complain about your backpack all the time,” she says. “Your textbooks are much too heavy,” and he laughs with the weightless relief of it.

“And you call me the idiot,” Emma scolds her fondly. She’s holding Mom’s hand again, clutching it tightly, but Mom doesn’t seem to mind.

“I seem to recall you’ve been in quite a few similar situations, dear.”

“Not like this,” Emma says, and they look at each other a couple seconds too long before looking away.

“I’m fine,” Mom assures them both. Henry looks at her skeptically, trying to mimic her eyebrow raise and utterly failing, and she says, “ _really_. Let’s go home and celebrate.”

“Together?” Emma asks in confusion. He’s confused too, because they’d planned it so it would be just him and Mom after Mom had nearly stormed off at the suggestion that they merge families ( _This has been our day for years, and if you think I’m going to let your idiot parents ruin the holiday you’ve got another thing coming, Miss Swan_ ). She’d apologized after for overreacting, but he kind of gets why she’d said it, even if he does think Christmas with Emma would be pretty great.

“I don’t see why not,” says Mom, biting her lip. “You did save me, after all.”

“Okay,” Emma says, and her eyes are shining like Mom’s given her the best gift of all.

(Which is wrong, because Henry’s going to give her the best gift of all. But Mary Margaret once told him the best things in life aren’t things, and maybe this is one of those, some abstract idea that can’t be explained, tying his moms to each other in ways that can only be felt.)

\--

It’s a little different, but it’s still Christmas.

Mom tries to cook but her head is pounding, so Emma shrugs and points her to the couch and makes them all grilled cheeses on white bread. ( _Your eating habits are worse than Henry’s, and he’s a teenage boy_ , Mom notes, but she still devours the sandwich when Emma’s not looking.)

They gather around the tree. Mom lies on the couch; Emma sits on the floor next to him, camera at the ready and a Santa hat perched on her head. He gets to distribute the presents, just like every year, and he hands out the smaller ones first.

“What could this be?” Emma asks, exaggerating her movements as she shakes the brightly wrapped box next to her ear.

“Open it,” Henry urges. Mom smiles indulgently from her position on the couch.

Emma rips apart the wrapping paper. “Thanks, kid,” she says with a grin, and she holds up the AUX cord so Mom can see.

“So we can listen to something other than classic rock,” he explains, because Emma’s car’s been stuck on the same station ever since he'd met her and there's only so many times he can listen to Led Zeppelin without going crazy. Also, Mom _detests_ Emma’s music and now she'll be able to play classical if they go on drives together, which both Emma and Henry pretend to hate but don't mind so much, especially if it's Bach.

“I suppose if you force someone into that yellow atrocity, the least you can do is let them choose the music,” Mom says drily. 

Emma smirks at her. “You secretly love my car. Don't try to deny it.”

“That is simply not true,” Mom replies loftily, but after a beat she adds, “I suppose it has been helpful, at times.”

“Like when we were being chased by a huge evil Chernawhatsit and we got away? Or when we went on that road trip to find Lily and it didn't die even though you bet me it would within four hours? Like those times?”

Mom sniffs. “We remember those events rather differently, dear.”

“Whatever,” Henry says, because it's _Christmas_ and this is really not the time and everyone's okay and there's still a pile of presents under the tree, most of them with his name on the tags. “Can we get back to what’s important, please?”

“And just what would that be?” Emma teases. “I hope you're not suggesting that presents are the most important part of Christmas, because _clearly_ it's being with your family and spreading the holiday spirit.”

“Stop sucking up,” he retorts, gesturing to Mom, and Emma laughs, red rising in her cheeks.

“Alright, you win. Who's next?”

“Mom,” he says imperiously, pointing.

Mom takes her time removing the wrapping paper, smooths the edges so it doesn't rip. When he was younger, he used to get so frustrated he'd try to open her presents for her, and she’d hold them high over his head and tell him there was no point in wasting perfectly good paper, an amused smile on her lips. 

“Thank you, my darling boy,” she says as she removes the earrings from their box. She reaches back to take off the studs she’s wearing now, and flinches as one catches in her hair.

“I've got it,” says Emma. Gently, she untangles the hook from behind Mom’s ear. Henry sees her fingers linger on Mom’s neck for a second, which is kind of gross but kind of okay.

“My turn!” he says when Mom’s put the pearls into place, and he grabs the biggest box he can find with his name on the tag.

“That one’s from both of us,” Mom tells him, and Emma ducks her neck. 

It's a PlayStation 4. He opens it further and--yep, three controllers, so him and Mom and Emma can all play together. “Thanks, moms,” he gets out, and it was on his list but it's different to have it in front of him and think about what it means, think about Mom inevitably winning because she's fiercely competitive and learns all his games so they can play together, and Emma snarkily accusing her of cheating, and him just sitting in the middle of his family with an ocean of love around him. 

Because the thing is, they _are_ a family. They're connected now, after years of pulling and pushing and being torn apart and having to choose, feeling like he was supposed to pick a side and hating it. When Mom would say _my son_ and Emma was afraid for him and Mom was afraid too, afraid that he'd be taken away or worse, that he'd take himself away.

He used to wish for a family, after he found the book. He used to think about a mom and a dad and saviors and white knights, except every time he’d try to picture the house where they'd live he'd think of 108 Mifflin Street and the smell of Mom’s apple pie filtering through the kitchen.

He'd never imagined this. But somehow, it feels like this is how it's always been, Henry and his two moms and their secret smiles and a blinding, overwhelming happiness. _Our son_. Family.

“Okay,” he says. “Now for the special presents.”

Mom raises an eyebrow. “I see. Emma and I don't get to give each other our gifts?”

“After,” he replies, flapping a hand at her, because this is his _moment_. He hands the book to Emma. “To remind you where home is,” he explains, suddenly shy.

Emma looks at the cover, looks at him, looks at the first page--a selfie they'd taken in her office, where Henry’s holding her badge and screwing his face up in a Serious Expression and she’s holding up her hands in mock terror. She starts to speak, and then stops, turns to a random page. It's the one with _family_ etched over the picture, and she clutched the sides of the book so hard her knuckles turn white. “Henry,” she says, tears in her eyes, and she leans forward to squeeze him into a hug. “ _Thank you_.”

He shares a smile with Mom, inwardly congratulating himself.

“It's always good to have a reminder of how much you mean to the people around you,” Mom says, which he thinks might be one of their coded messages because Emma sucks in a breath and holds him tighter before finally letting go.

“Now for Mom,” he interrupts before things can get too sappy. (Although his gift for her is pretty mushy, so he can't really talk.)

Mom’s surprised, he can tell--she thought he'd only gotten the earrings, and he congratulates himself again. Gift-giving’s always been one of his specialties. After operations, of course.

She unwraps the paper slowly, and he waits, on edge. At first glance, the book looks exactly like _Once Upon a Time_ , title and all, and he can sense her confusion.

“You have to open it,” he says.

He can see the moment she understands at last, watches a muscle jump in her neck, tracks the hard swallow in the lines of her throat. 

“Oh,” she says softly. " _Oh_."

“I wanted--to replace the old one,” Henry tries to explain, gesturing loosely. “Because the person in the other book, that's not you, now. And I just wanted to...show that, I guess.”

He looks at Emma for help. 

“What is it?” she asks tentatively.

Mom looks up, her face covered in tears. “It’s a new fairy tale book,” she chokes out. “Henry’s written new stories about our life together here,” and she looks at him in awe, in wonder, and Emma’s looking at her the same way, and he feels something warm and glowing take root in his chest.

Later, the two of them will bend their heads over the book and go over every story. How she used to sing him songs to soothe him to sleep, gentle and lilting. The tale she’d told him of his adoption, how she tried to let him go but couldn't because he’d stolen a tiny piece of her heart. When she'd come to Neverland to save him. Lunches at Granny’s, movies at home. Halloweens, teacher-parent conferences, broken curses and redemption and true love. Mom will whisper all of them to herself like prayers, like her words are erasing the ghost of the Evil Queen and painting a picture of a new life, a new beginning.

But for now, they sit together, him and Emma and Mom, tears dried on their cheeks and twinkling lights reflected in their eyes, and they have Christmas together.

\--

He goes into the kitchen for cider, and when he comes back Emma’s talking to Mom, voice low in her throat. Henry stays in the doorway, listens.

“You scared me, today,” Emma admits. She reaches out her hand towards Mom’s shoulder and Mom grabs it and holds it against her jaw.

“I'm okay,” Mom whispers, and they both shudder. “I’m more than okay.”

“All I want for Christmas is for you to stay alive, got it?” Emma says jokingly, except Emma has a special voice for joking and she's not using it.

“You don't have to worry,” Mom responds. “I have...a lot of things to live for. People I love. Two of them in particular, actually,” and she brushes a strand of Emma’s hair off her face.

“Two?” Emma asks breathlessly.

“Two,” Mom says, and she lets her lips brush against Emma's before pressing their foreheads together and breathing out _one two three_ solid and strong.

(All in all, it’s probably the best Christmas Henry’s ever had, except for the trip to the hospital. And he still has at least five more presents waiting for him at Mary Margaret and David’s.)

**Author's Note:**

> in case people noticed, i have zero knowledge about a) hospitals/concussions and b) video games. forgive me. sometimes i like to ignore facts and write fluff.


End file.
